Capturing the world through photography, video and multimedia

French aviator Louis Paulhan makes a record-breaking flight to 4,600 feet at the Los Angeles Air Meet in Dominguez Hills in 1910. The balloon in the background advertised the young Los Angeles Examiner, a Hearst paper that, along with the Los Angeles Times, helped sponsor the meet. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

Lyman Gilmore Jr. and his brother Charles are seen in their barn in Grass Valley, Calif., in 1907. Although this steam-powered, eight-passenger plane never flew, they represented early aviation enthusiasts drawn to the imaginative possibilities of flight. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

Two female flying enthusiasts are seen in 1915. Although early aviation carried a strong masculine bent, flying attracted women as well as men. Female pilots were soon matching skills with men, barnstorming in exhibitions, setting speed and altitude records, and stunt-flying for movies. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

Wiley Post, Bill Parker, Carl Squier and Dick von Hake are seen with the Lockheed Vega fuselage in 1929. Post, a famous one-eyed pilot, flew his Vega Winnie Mae on two record-breaking round-the-world flights.

Wiley Post, Bill Parker and Capt. Balderston, from left, confer with an unidentified pilot wearing a sub-stratosphere suit in 1935. Post used the suit to fly to an unofficial record of 55,000 feet. On a later flight, after a forced landing, the alien-looking pressure suit alarmed local residents.
Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

A static load test of the Lockheed Vega wing in 1929. During one such test, as the crew added sandbags to the load, Lockheed executive Carl Squier snuck in and snapped a piece of wood behind his back. The engineers all jumped, thinking the entire wing had given way. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

A flight attendant serves tea on a Transcontinental Air Transport flight in 1929. Passenger flight catered to the wealthy during the Roaring '20s. Transcontinental Air Transport specialized in first-class service; a one-way cross-country ticket cost $350. Ten days after this photo was taken. the stock market crashed and the Great Depression replaced scenes of luxury with hardship. The airline was bankrupt within a year. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

Amelia Earhart takes a break on the Lockheed factory floor in the early 1930s. Earhart presented a glamorous public image but knew her way around an airplane and an aircraft plant. She was a frequent visitor to Lockheed to keep tabs on the construction of her newest airplanes. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

A woman welds exhaust manifolds for airplane engines at Solar Air in 1943. By 1944, women made up more than 40% of the aircraft production workforce in Los Angeles. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

A Lockheed Constitution is under construction in 1946. The scale of some planes matched the scope of the industry's mobilization. The Constitution's tail towered 50 feet, requiring a special hangar. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

Test pilot "Cowboy" Joe Walker is seen in 1955 with the Bell X-1A rocket plane at the NASA High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base. Test pilots at Edwards were modern-day cowboys on the high-desert frontier, cultivating a culture of individuality and courage. Credit: NASA

NASA pilot Bill Dana watches a Boeing NB-52B carrier aircraft fly overhead in 1969 after a successful test flight of the Northrop HL-10 lifting body at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. Fellow pilot John Reeves can be seen at the cockpit of the lifting body. Credit: NASA

SR-71 Blackbirds are seen on the production line at Lockheed Skunk Works in the mid-1960s The scale of some planes matched the scope of the industry's mobilization. A sign on the wall warns "Watch out for F.O.D." A loose bolt or rivet that could be sucked into a jet engine was potential "foreign object damage," costing millions of dollars to repair. Credit: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

100 years of Southland aviation history

A new exhibit at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens will showcase the aerospace industry’s impact on Southern California over the last 100 years.

“Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California” recounts that transformative era through approximately 50 manuscripts, documents and photographs drawn from the Huntington’s growing collection of aerospace-related materials and other private and public collections. The exhibit will be on view in the library’s West Hall from Oct. 8 to Jan. 9.